"The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt, storage and redistribution of solar energy and its eventual radiation back into space. If the interest is in climatic changes from whatever cause, the essential first step is to establish the baseline condition. Even the most cursory examination of hydro-climatic records demonstrates the presence of an oscillating behaviour. This has been known since biblical times.Further examination shows that these observations are mainly but not entirely closely synchronous with sunspot activity which in turn is caused by processes within the Sun itself. In the attached report David Bredenkamp examines the causes of the oscillatory behaviour in detail. " An extract from the latest post by Professor W JR (Will) Alexander, based on South Africa's treasury of some of the world's longest-standing and best climate records.

Impact of planetary interactions

Will Alexander
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
David Bredenkamp
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Monday 8 August 2011

A puzzling issue in the whole climate change affair is why did climate change scientists on both sides of the fence deliberately ignore the role of variations in received solar energy on the Earth's climate? The oscillating consequences have been observed and studied for more than 100 years, yet the IPCC reports continue to maintain that the Earth's climate is a steady-state phenomenon and that the consequences of variations in solar activity are far less than the influence of greenhouse gas emissions for which there is no believable evidence at all.
My recent memos were written in easy to read layman's language. Now the time has come to dig a little deeper.
The attached report was produced by my colleague David Bredenkamp. He is an experienced hydro-geologist. You may have difficulty in understanding his contribution if you are not technically minded. In this case I suggest that you read the abstract and then glance through the 15 figures in his report. Each and every one of them demonstrates a very clear oscillating behaviour. How on earth is it possible that scientists in the field of climate change can maintain that the Earth's climate is a steady-state phenomenon when all the evidence is to the contrary?
Until now, the difficulty was in establishing the causal linkage between climatic variations and variations in received solar energy. In the attached report David Bredenkamp solves the problem. All that I ask is that you read the abstract of his report and then compare it with the extracts from Chapter 2 of the IPCC’s assessment report that I quoted in an earlier memo then draw your own conclusions.
I realise that at this stage the views of five of us acting independently and without any research funding, may have little impact but here's another analogy. The world has come to the edge of a precipice on this climate change issue. One step further and it will tumble down the cliff. It will be forced to revise its position or suffer the consequences. Hopefully our memos will assist it to retreat with dignity.
Global warming?
I find it extremely difficult (impossible) to believe that experienced scientists and their institutions can maintain that human activities can have a greater influence on global climate than variations in received solar energy and its storage and redistribution via the atmospheric and oceanic processes.
Compare David's report with the following ‘understanding’ in the IPCC reports. In simple terms their understanding is as follows.
Like the ancient Egyptians they have great difficulty in presenting a three-dimensional view on a two-dimensional surface. This forces them to maintain that the earth is flat like a huge pancake. Unlike our globe, their pancake has no equator nor polar regions. Most of its surface is not covered by water.
Their fundamental error is the assumption that the earth's climate is driven by global temperature. But the sun does not radiate heat. It only becomes heat energy when it strikes your body when you are sunbathing on the beach, or strikes exposed water surfaces. This heat energy is converted to other forms as the evaporated water rises into the atmosphere.
All those power lines that criss-cross the country do not convey heat energy. Their temperature is the same as that of the surrounding air.
The temperature of water in a dam used to generate hydropower does not change as it moves through the power generators. The generators convert potential energy related to the dam's elevation to electrical energy. Temperature plays no part in the process.
The energy that you use when performing a physical task is not related to the temperature of your body.
There are many more examples.
It is energy in its various forms that drives global climatic processes not temperature. Human influences are no more relevant than those of ants in an ant hill.
The assumption that the earth's climate is influenced by global warming is no more than a fairy tale.
They then go even further. There is a fourth dimension -- time. The Earth's climate changes continually with time. All that is needed to appreciate this is the daily weather forecasts on TV. No successive forecasts are exactly the same. The climate change believers are lost when considering this key dimension.
These scientists are completely ignorant of the fact that energy is like water -- it can only flow downhill. There has to be an energy gradient. The fundamentally important energy gradient is from the equator towards the poles. Solar energy received on Earth does not stay where it is but moves towards the poles via the global atmospheric and oceanic processes, radiating energy back into space along the way. There is not much left by the time that it reaches the polar regions. So how will enough surplus energy reach Antarctica to melt all those cubic kilometres of solid ice when there is not enough surplus energy to melt the snow from the top of Mt Kilimanjaro on the equator?
This means that the further the region is from the equator, the greater the proportion of the available energy will come from the lower latitudes. This means that Europe for example receives more second-hand energy from lower latitudes to the south than directly from the Sun.
One very important observation that Dave makes in his report is that energy, like water, can be stored and released from storage just like water in a dam. He shows this in turn accounts for much of the climate’s oscillatory behaviour.
Energy takes several forms during the climatic processes. Heat energy is only one of them. Another fundamental and vitally important error made by climate change scientists as shown in the IPCC documents, is the use of temperature which is a measure of heat energy, instead of energy in all its forms. It is the distribution of energy not heat that drives the climatic processes.
Compare the frequent reference to ‘temperature’ in the IPCC documents with the correct use of ‘energy’ in David’s presentation.
FINAL SUMMARY
The Earth's climate is driven by the receipt, storage and redistribution of solar energy and its eventual radiation back into space. If the interest is in climatic changes from whatever cause, the essential first step is to establish the baseline condition. Even the most cursory examination of hydro-climatic records demonstrates the presence of an oscillating behaviour. This has been known since biblical times.
Further examination shows that these observations are mainly but not entirely closely synchronous with sunspot activity which in turn is caused by processes within the Sun itself. In the attached report David examines the causes of the oscillatory behaviour in detail.
With all this in mind we must ask a fundamental question. Why were these basic scientific requirements and observations not addressed by all those scientists referenced in the IPCC's assessment reports? Was it through ignorance or for research funding? Or were there other influences at play?
Recent events provide some clues. The first is the softening of the previous highly aggressive views of the Royal Society and the BBC in favour of global warming. Probable causes for their change of attitude are that the global climate is not behaving as predicted in the alarmist reports. The other is the growing volume of critical views on the Internet. These are the scientific grounds for their softened approach.
The other more worrying event was the failed attempt by the developed nations to involve the UN Security Council. What prompted them to do this despite the certainty that it would upset the developing nations and their scientific advisers? Their action was obviously for political and economic reasons.
Humanitarian oncerns
Everybody should appreciate that this is a vitally important matter. The lives and livelihoods of tens of millions of people are at stake particularly those in the developing nations of Africa.
For example, the world is now witnessing the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Horn of Africa. Our published studies showed that this event was predictable. However, the delayed response by the UN agencies shows that my UN commissioned study Risk and Society – an African Perspective published in 1999, and our predictions published in 2008 were ignored. The IPCC prediction methodology is fundamentally incapable of producing this information.
Is it not obvious that poverty reduction should be the world’s priority and not the unproven and politically motivated pressures exerted by the affluent nations? Are we not witnessing the resurrection of another form of human slavery? Otherwise how would you explain the UN approved military intervention in Libya in the name of democracy and complete absence of intervention in Somalia where tens of thousands have already died of starvation and disease while no stable form of government exists? Have the affluent western nations no shame?
NATO’s intervention in Libya has already resulted in appreciable damage to Libya’s economy. Many hundreds of foreign workers have fled the country. Surely the grounds for intervention in Somalia are far greater than those used to justify military intervention in Libya. Why has this not happened?
If you have a deep interest in the climate change issue then I strongly recommend that you compare David's report with Chapter 2 of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report with its many contributors, lead authors and review editors. Then read David’s concluding remarks with which I am in full agreement.
The predicted impacts of global warming and other consequences will remain speculative and will be subject to serious criticism unless the global climate models incorporate the cyclical responses and the correlations of any energy imbalances shown to be linked to the planetary interacting forces.
Hopefully the Durban conference will see some solutions to this very difficult situation. I am sure that all those closely involved with the conference appreciate that if it fails the UNFCCC and the IPCC will sink with it. Climate change believers and their institutions should seriously consider their probable positions when this happens. The media will not have far to go to find scapegoats.
This ends my contribution to this difficult issue that has occupied much of my time during the past 40 years.
As always please feel free to distribute this very important email as widely as possible.
Regards,
Will